IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

Innovation, employment growth, and foreign ownership of firms

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Dachs, Bernhard
  • Peters, Bettina

Abstract

This paper examines how foreign-owned and domestically owned firms transform innovation into employment growth. The empirical analysis, based on the model of Harrison et al. (2008) and CIS data for 16 countries, reveals important differences between the two groups: Due to general productivity increases and process innovation, foreign-owned firms experience higher job losses than domestically owned firms. At the same time, employment-creating effects of product innovation are larger for foreign-owned firms. Together with employment-stimulating effects stemming from existing products, they overcompensate the negative displacement effects resulting in net employment growth in foreign-owned firms. However, net employment growth turns out to be smaller in foreign-owned firms than in domestically owned firms.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733313001418
Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Research Policy.

Volume (Year): 43 (2014)
Issue (Month): 1 ()
Pages: 214-232

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:43:y:2014:i:1:p:214-232
DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2013.08.001
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol

Keywords: Employment; Innovation; Foreign ownership; Community Innovation Survey; Host country effects;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
  • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
  • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Wolfgang Keller & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2009. "Multinational Enterprises, International Trade, and Productivity Growth: Firm-Level Evidence from the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(4), pages 821-831, November.
  2. Keller, Wolfgang, 2010. "International Trade, Foreign Direct Investment, and Technology Spillovers," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, Elsevier.
  3. Martin Borowiecki & Bernhard Dachs & Doris Hanzl-Weiss & Steffen Kinkel & Johannes Pöschl & Magdolna Sass & Thomas Christian Schmall & Robert Stehrer & Andrea Szalavetz, 2012. "Global Value Chains and the EU Industry," wiiw Research Reports 383, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
  4. Harrison, Rupert & Jaumandreu, Jordi & Mairesse, Jacques & Peters, Bettina, 2014. "Does innovation stimulate employment? A firm-level analysis using comparable micro-data from four European countries," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 29-43.
  5. Van Reenen, John, 1997. "Employment and Technological Innovation: Evidence from U.K. Manufacturing Firms," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(2), pages 255-284, April.
  6. Matteo Lucchese & Mario Pianta, 2012. "Innovation and Employment in Economic Cycles," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 54(2), pages 341-359, June.
  7. Lachenmaier, Stefan & Rottmann, Horst, 2011. "Effects of innovation on employment: A dynamic panel analysis," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 210-220, March.
  8. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen, 2010. "Why Do Management Practices Differ across Firms and Countries?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 203-224, Winter.
  9. Kleibergen, Frank & Paap, Richard, 2006. "Generalized reduced rank tests using the singular value decomposition," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 97-126, July.
  10. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1992. "A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 323-351, March.
  11. Ina Drejer, 2000. "Comparing Patterns of Industrial Interdependence in National Systems of Innovation - A Study of Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 377-399.
  12. James R. Markusen, 2004. "Multinational Firms and the Theory of International Trade," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262633078, July.
  13. Williams, Christopher & Lee, Soo Hee, 2009. "Resource allocations, knowledge network characteristics and entrepreneurial orientation of multinational corporations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1376-1387, October.
  14. Christian Bellak, 2004. "How Domestic and Foreign Firms Differ and Why Does it Matter?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 483-514, 09.
  15. Steven Globerman & John C. Ries & Ilan Vertinsky, 1994. "The Economic Performance of Foreign Affiliates in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 27(1), pages 143-156, February.
  16. Un, C. Annique & Cuervo-Cazurra, Alvaro, 2008. "Do subsidiaries of foreign MNEs invest more in R&D than domestic firms?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 1812-1828, December.
  17. Pfaffermayr, Michael & Bellak, Christian, 2000. "Why foreign-owned firms are different : a conceptual framework and empirical evidence for Austria," HWWA Discussion Papers 115, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA).
  18. Marin, Anabel & Sasidharan, Subash, 2010. "Heterogeneous MNC subsidiaries and technological spillovers: Explaining positive and negative effects in India," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 1227-1241, November.
  19. Jacques Mairesse, 2008. "Employment, innovation, and productivity: evidence from Italian microdata," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 813-839, August.
  20. Sadowski, Bert M. & Sadowski-Rasters, Gaby, 2006. "On the innovativeness of foreign affiliates: Evidence from companies in The Netherlands," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 447-462, April.
  21. Motohashi, Kazuyuki & Yuan, Yuan, 2010. "Productivity impact of technology spillover from multinationals to local firms: Comparing China's automobile and electronics industries," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 790-798, July.
  22. Buch, Claudia M. & Lipponer, Alexander, 2010. "Volatile multinationals? Evidence from the labor demand of German firms," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 345-353, April.
  23. Magnus Blomstrom & Ari Kokko, 2003. "The Economics of Foreign Direct Investment Incentives," NBER Working Papers 9489, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  24. Christopher F Baum & Mark E. Schaffer & Steven Stillman, 2007. "Enhanced routines for instrumental variables/GMM estimation and testing," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 667, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 05 Sep 2007.
  25. Rachel Griffith & Helen Simpson, 2004. "Characteristics of Foreign-Owned Firms in British Manufacturing," NBER Chapters,in: Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980-2000, pages 147-180 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  26. Evangelista, Rinaldo & Savona, Maria, 2003. "Innovation, employment and skills in services. Firm and sectoral evidence," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 449-474, December.
  27. Bernhard Dachs & Bernd Ebersberger & Hans Lööf, 2008. "The innovative performance of foreign-owned enterprises in small open economies," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 393-406, August.
  28. Richard Harris & Catherine Robinson, 2003. "Foreign Ownership and Productivity in the United Kingdom Estimates for U.K. Manufacturing Using the ARD," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 22(3), pages 207-223, May.
  29. Bogliacino, Francesco & Pianta, Mario, 2010. "Innovation and Employment: a Reinvestigation using Revised Pavitt classes," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 799-809, July.
  30. Elhanan Helpman & Marc J. Melitz & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2004. "Export Versus FDI with Heterogeneous Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 300-316, March.
  31. Mary O'Mahony & Marcel P. Timmer, 2009. "Output, Input and Productivity Measures at the Industry Level: The EU KLEMS Database," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(538), pages 374-403, 06.
  32. Blechinger Doris & Pfeiffer Friedhelm, 1999. "Qualifikation, Beschäftigung und technischer Fortschritt / Skill Structure, Employment and Technological Progress: Empirische Evidenz mit den Daten des Mannheimer Innovationspanels / Empirical Evidenc," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 218(1-2), pages 128-146, February.
  33. Marion Frenz & Grazia Ietto-Gillies, 2007. "Does Multinationality Affect the Propensity to Innovate? An Analysis of the Third UK Community Innovation Survey," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 99-117.
  34. Zanfei, Antonello, 2000. "Transnational Firms and the Changing Organisation of Innovative Activities," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(5), pages 515-542, September.
  35. Cragg, John G. & Donald, Stephen G., 1993. "Testing Identifiability and Specification in Instrumental Variable Models," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(02), pages 222-240, April.
  36. Smolny, Werner, 1998. "Innovations, Prices and Employment: A Theoretical Model and an Empirical Application for West German Manufacturing Firms," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 359-381, September.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as
in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:43:y:2014:i:1:p:214-232. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.